China earthquake - the survivors’ tales

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Judy Ling Wong was fulfilling a lifelong dream to cuddle a panda when the world exploded around her.

She was one of a group of 19 British tourists visiting the Wolong Panda Reserve, in Wenchuan county, where researchers are breeding the endangered animal in a narrow valley in the hills of China’s southwestern Sichuan province.

She had paid 2,000 yuan (£142) to have her photograph taken holding one of the babies at the reserve’s nursery. “I never got the second picture,” she said. Suddenly the ground shook and the group saw huge boulders falling down the slopes. At first the